


The First Day

by Carmendy



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 23:04:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5762368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmendy/pseuds/Carmendy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sole Survivor Scarlet encounters and purchases the services of ex-Gunner MacCready. Without anything left to do until the next day, they get a room for the night at the Rexford Hotel and face the time-honored tradition of debating whether sharing the bed with your newly hired gun is unprofessional or simply common courtesy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Day

He had meant it as a joke, mostly. “Need a gun for hire? Two-hundred and fifty caps.” He’d almost said “I’ll cost you two-hundred and fifty caps”, but that had sounded a little too prostitution-y in his head. It was a joke because of how suddenly the cost of his services had declined, because this was how far he’d sunk, that he’d gone from being a hired gun to being worth less than what a decent pistol would’ve cost down at Daisy’s shop in the current market. It was funny because, despite it being a joke, he was also dead serious. It was a joke, but the punchline would change the course of his life forever.  
“Sure.” She’d looked him over closely then, brown eyes shining keenly, appraising, then unexpectedly turning warm. “I could use someone to watch my back.” He thought that was one of the nicest euphemisms he’d ever heard for “someone to shoot people for me”. She reached into her bag and started counting out the caps. “I’ll see you back in Sanctuary”, she said to her companion once she seemed satisfied with the payment in her hand. They nodded, and shuffled off. She held out the handful of caps—MacCready almost laughed, the whole sum barely filled her feminine palm--, and he cupped his hands for her to deposit them into. But before she did, she peered up at him, trying to find his eyes under the shadow the lidded cap cast onto his face. When she did, she tilted her head.  
“What’s your name?”  
“MacCready.” She nodded, then tipped her palm, transferring the caps into his. As he pocketed them, he replied,  
“Yours?”  
“You can call me Scarlet.” The way she said it, he could tell it was a name she hadn’t been using for long, but he knew better than to question the information his employers shared. She shifted the pack on her back and started out.  
“Come on.”  
She was surprisingly agile, and MacCready had to widen his own paces to keep up with her, despite their near-equal heights. Once they got back up to the streets of Goodneighbor, he attempted to strike up conversation.  
“So, Scarlet, what’s your business?”  
Her brows lowered. “What do you mean?”  
“Why does someone like you need someone like me?” He hadn’t meant anything by the ‘someone like you’ comment, really, only that he’d noticed the lack of callouses on her hands and the absence of scars or the other Wasteland-symptomatic blemishes. She wore the ugly corroded cage armor of a raider, but her face was too clean for her to be one of them. To his relief, she overlooked the remark.  
“Well, I’m sort of a wanderer. I roam around.”  
“A wanderer? Like that song?” He thought he spotted recognition on her face, but it quickly vanished.  
“What song?”  
“You know,” She stopped, turned around and looked at him expectantly. He tugged at his collar and cleared his throat, then worked out a raspy rendition of the chorus, “He’s a wanderer, he roams around, around, around—” He felt his face grow hot and then stopped short, suddenly unable to remember why he’d started in the first place. “It’s on Diamond City Radio all the time.”  
She smiled.  
“What?”  
“I know.”  
“Wait—why didn’t you say?”  
“I wanted to see if you’d sing it.”  
“Oh, ha ha.”  
“Come on, you were good. You know, I met Travis in Diamond City, before he blew up.” MacCready jumped at the opening for a change in topic.  
“Oh yeah, I remember that. He was awful until that vault dweller came along and helped him—” He glanced at her Pip Boy. “Wait. Oh shi—shoot, are you--them? The vault dweller?”  
“Pretty bright for a thug. Looks like I’ll be getting my cap’s worth after all.”  
“Wow. So that’s what you meant by---say, you’re the general of the Minutemen now, too, right? How is that?”  
She shrugged. “It’s all right. I mostly do my own thing, and when people thank me I just tell them to thank the Minutemen instead.”  
“Huh. But still, you’re like a big freaking deal. Where are we going, anyway?” They’d just passed the Memory Den, and were nearing the edge of town.  
“Well, it’s my first day in Goodneighbor and I’m pretty tired out from travelling the Commonwealth, so I was thinking of just getting a room for the night and then starting tomorrow fresh.”  
“Oh—okay.”  
“Think you can keep your finger off the trigger for a few hours?”  
“I’ll try.”  
She pushed through the doors of the Hotel Rexford and went to the front desk to rent a room. He waited by the door until he heard her call him.  
“MacCready!” She jangled the keys and gestured for him to follow, and he shuffled after her as she started up the stairs.  
She bolted down the hall and into the room, wasting no time in tossing her bag on the bed and heaving the chest armor over her shoulders. He shut the door behind them and propped his gun against the adjoining wall. “You hungry?” She inquired, and it took him a second to realize she was speaking to him. It wasn’t a question his employers usually asked.  
“No, I ate earlier. I sure could use a cigarette though. I think I saw a machine downstairs—”  
“I’ve got you covered.” She rummaged through her bag and withdrew a pack of cigarettes, flipping open the lid with her thumb. He plucked a cigarette from the box and placed it between his lips.  
“Thanks.”  
“No problem.”  
He dug through his pockets, sifting through the caps she’d given him until he felt the metal lighter. He lifted it to the end of the cigarette, then flicked it until the light caught.  
“You mind?” She asked, and he looked up at the unlit cigarette between her lips. They were nice lips, sharp, but plump, like a pinup model’s.  
“Oh—yeah, of course.” He stepped closer to her, trying hard not to breathe smoke in her face as he fumbled with the lighter. He tried to focus on the tip of the cigarette, and not the lips holding it as he lit it, but before he knew it, he found himself looking at her eyes again. She was looking at him too, with that wide doe gaze he didn’t know what to do with, and just as he felt his face turning red, her eyes flickered down, at the cigarette, which had finally caught.  
He stepped away and stuffed the lighter sheepishly in his pocket, pulling the hat further down his forehead in the hopes of concealing his flushed complexion. She seemed to pay him no mind as she fell back onto the bed, then kicked herself up into a sitting position against the headboard, sucking in deeply, causing her cheeks to look even more gaunt, her cheekbones even rounder. She closed her eyes as she kissed smoke rings into the air in front of her, and MacCready realized he hadn’t been breathing as he sputtered out the smoke that’d been burning his throat. He stood by the door for a while, pretending to busy himself with finding a better spot for the rifle, as she continued the smoke ring competition with herself. Eventually though, he grew tired of standing, and lowered himself onto the ground, propping his back against the wall.  
“What are you doing?” She asked suddenly, startling him. She held the cigarette between her fingers at her side, and despite the interesting smoke trail that streamed up from it, all he could see were those lips.  
“I—sitting. Is that—okay?”  
“Not on the floor. You seem like you’ve had a pretty long day too, you deserve to be comfortable.”  
“I am comfortable.”  
“You don’t look comfortable. Come on, sit in the bed.” His face reddened again. “For god’s sakes, no need to be prudish, it’s just sitting.”  
“I’m not,” he scoffed, “prudish.” He stood up and made his way over to the bed, then made a show out of fluffing the pillow before sitting down.  
“I just wasn’t sure if you’d be okay with it. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”  
“Well, if you’re capable of keeping your hands to yourself, we shouldn’t have any problems.” He stretched his legs out in front of him, mirroring hers.  
“Well, I am. Capable. Of that.”  
“Good.”  
“Fine.”  
He stretched an arm behind his head and took a long drag of the cigarette. Finally she disrupted the long streak of tense noiselessness by reaching towards the foot of the bed and dragging her bag towards her.  
“So,” He said. He hadn’t really done the whole ‘following-the-boss-around’ gig before, and he was having some trouble adjusting to the amount of awkward silence involved. “How do you like Goodneighbor so far?”  
“It’s a nice place. Better than Diamond City, anyway.”  
“Clearly. But what do you like about it?”  
“For starters, the people here are much friendlier towards newcomers.”  
“Ain’t that the truth. Diamond City has it perks though. Man, last time I visited, there was this great noodle stand—I’m not sure if it’s there any more, honestly, it’s been a while since I’ve been.”  
“It is.”  
“Good. Man, those noodles—Hey, are you thinking of going back there any time soon?”  
“Tell you what, if I do, I’ll take you with me.” She was confused by how stricken he looked. Like he’d never been offered a favor before.  
“Really?”  
“Sure.” It went quiet again, and MacCready jammed the remains of the cigarette into the ashtray on the bedside table with his thumb as she continued to go through her bag.  
“Hey, my load’s a little heavy, would you mind carrying a few things for me?”  
“Yeah, sure.” He noticed she gave her orders in the form of questions, which for some reason, felt nice.  
She began taking things out of the bag and sorting them into piles.  
“Have you killed a lot of raiders?” He asked, observing the large quantities of rusty raider armor in one pile.  
“You could say that.” At one point, she pushed her bag in between them to make room for a third pile on the bed as she sat with her legs crossed, looking through one of the piles for something.  
“Hey, can you see if there’s a twelve-millimeter in there?”  
“On it.” He pulled the bag to him and looked closely. He spotted the gun, but as he reached to grab it, he noticed something else. A wedding ring. He swallowed, and took the gun, loosening the piece of fabric underneath, which folded over to reveal—another ring. He stared, possibly for too long, because she looked over her shoulder at him.  
“You found it. “ She extended a hand, and he blinked and shook his head to himself.  
“Yeah, here you go.” He handed her the gun, and she added it to one pile. With a final, cursory glance, she seemed satisfied.  
“All right. You take this pile.” She pushed one stack towards him.  
“We’ll sell this junk tomorrow. You can carry that too. And then this stuff can go back in the bag. “ Each stack of clothing and guns and various other Commonwealth trash was put in its proper place, but still, MacCready couldn’t forget about the rings.  
“So,” He asked, trying to sound light. “What vault did you come from?”  
Her face was impossible to read. “One-eleven.”  
“Why’d you leave?”  
“Well,” She crossed her arms. “After a while, the smell of rotting corpses loses its charm.”  
He sat up, his eyes widening. “You mean--Did anyone else make it?” She opened her mouth for a second, then shut it and shook her head slightly, her sandy hair falling over her eyes. He wondered how she kept it styled like that, with those curls. He was reminded again of the old pin ups, but also of something—someone else. A mother. A wife.  
“Nope. I’m the sole survivor.”  
“I’m sorry.” He was surprised that he meant it.  
“It’s fine. I’m alive, I made it all the way here, and that’s all that matters, right?” At that moment, he was glad his hat hid his eyes.  
“Right.” He was surprised that he didn’t.  
…  
MacCready had been anticipating a debate over sharing the bed. He would insist on sleeping on the floor, no matter what she said. He’d rather deal with the back pains than the uncertainty of sleeping next to a woman for the first time since—. But it turned out there was no debate, because before there could be one, he’d fallen asleep. She hadn’t noticed until he’d already nodded off, although he had been quieter. It shouldn’t have been comforting, that her new hired gun fell asleep so easily, but it was. It proved he was human—not in the non-synth way, but in the way that meant he had weaknesses, soft spots—still not great traits for a hired gun, but when she’d paid him, she hadn’t been paying for muscle, she’d been paying for loyalty. The caps alone wouldn’t get her that, she’d have to work for it, but it was a start.  
She looked at him, the closest she had since paying him. He slept with his arms crossed over his chest, the brim of his hat sliding a little further down his nose with each breath. From the side, she could see that he had kind eyes, with laugh lines unbecoming of a killer. One of the hardest realizations she’d had since abandoning the vault for the Wasteland had been that she was the only one who had a life before. A life split down the middle like the atom bomb itself---before and after. This was the only world everyone else knew. She caught herself, just as she had started to wonder who he’d been before the bomb, as she imagined him in a polo shirt and slacks grilling hotdogs at a neighborhood barbecue. It seemed cruel, that he’d never get to know a life before—but maybe that was for the best. He’d never know loss like she did, loss of not just a family, but an entire world—although, how could she know for sure that he didn’t already? He was too skinny to have had someone who’d fed him, he slept too stiffly to have been used to having someone look after him. If he hadn’t been a lone wolf his whole life, she was willing to bet it’d been a while since he’d had someone to watch his back. Well, it was better he fall asleep now, in the safety of the hotel, than while they were camped out in the Commonwealth. She took a deep breath, then quietly swung her legs over the side of the mattress and crept to the door, locking it. She then went back to the bed and grabbed the pillow next to him. She set it on the floor and then laid on the ground, put her head down, and went to sleep.  
That morning, when he asked her why she’d slept on the floor, she retorted, in a tone of mixed mocking and sincerity,  
“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”  
After that, they always shared the bed.


End file.
